Smashing the Rackets

A crusading assistant DA (Chester Morris) strikes at a city’s gangster element. Potboiler melodramatics. Susan: Frances Mercer. Mac: Walter Miller. Steve: Bruce Cabot. Maxie: Paul Fix. Spaulding: Donald Douglas. Letty: Rita Johnson. Peggy: Kay Sutton. Lew Landers directed., “Ripped from today’s headlines”, RKO Radio’s Smashing the Rackets was inspired by the career of colorful New York district attorney Thomas E. Dewey. Chester Morris plays the Dewey character, here rechristened Jim Conway. Starting out as a G-Man, Conway is appointed special prosecutor of a conveniently unnamed state, whereupon he declares war on such gangster types as Bruce Cabot and Ben Welden. But while the real Dewey ascended to the governor’s chair, Jim Conway settles for a private law practice once his job is done. The talented but underused Frances Mercer provides the film’s romantic interest. Smashing the Rackets was the first of several “exploitation” pictures produced by RKO’s B-picture maven Lee Marcus; the next on the docket was Tarnished Angel, an “a clef” retelling of the Aimee Semple McPherson story.